Podcast Episode 159 Unedited Transcript Listen here The Crucial Difference Between Discipline and Punishment David Loy: Hello and welcome to In the Loop with Andy Andrews, I m your host David Loy. With me once again is, my good friend. Andy Andrews: Mr. Loop. David: Andy Andrews. Andy how are you? Andy: Good, good man. I m excited to be here with you. I love doing this and so, what do we have? David: Well I've got a quick question, it s a personal question. Andy: Ok. David: You might not want to answer it. Andy: Well if you have a question, feel free to call the 800 number and leave a voicemail for me. David: No, this was my personal question, before we get to the actual question. Andy: Ok.
David: A few weeks ago, you told me about a loss that the Andrews family experienced, a pet. And there was a story that you told me though about the day that, that happened and how one of your other pets was intricately involved in that. Andy: Yeah, this was, oh my gosh. This, I was actually getting ready to get out of town. And so Polly came in and she said, have you seen Carver? Now let me just tell you, Carver is fine. Don t get nervous here. Alright, Carver is fine. She said, have you seen Carver? And I said, no, I mean, how long? And she said, I don t know, I haven t seen him a couple of hours. Well that s really unusual because Carver is always there. If you re unfamiliar with Carver, you need to be on Facebook or whatever with us, because we see pictures occasionally, we have a huge, black, standard poodle that we do not shave. You know, we would have more boys in our house then there are girls. We have Polly 3:1, and so we don t have him cut in some weird way. Carver, he s awesome. His full name is George Washington Carver. And I wanted a dog that was, Austin has allergies and this dog is hypoallergenic and he is, USA Today said, that standard poodles are the second most intelligent breed, second to border collies, and truly Carver is five years old and this dog blows our minds. He is just amazing. And the neighbors are like, he s like a person, I m like, yeah, I know. So but anyway we couldn t find him. So we re out there yelling, and at some point I have to go back because I got to get out of here. I got to get to the airport. And so Adam and Polly are still looking for Carver. And this is very unusual that he is not coming immediately. And so finally, as I m about to walk out, Polly comes and says, we have found him, he s outside, he s like under the garage area. And I m like, under the garage. And she said, well Skippy is under there. And Skippy is sick. Now Skippy is one of the outdoor cats, ok. And we have a couple of outdoor cats because we have these little, these little snakes, and that s a whole different story. Little pygmy 2
rattlesnakes in the area and if you have outdoor cats, you don t have these snakes on your steps or anything like that. David: They ll take care of them. Andy: They ll take care of them. So we have Frosty and Skippy Jones. And so Skippy, he sits like under the garage area and he s backed up in the corner and something's wrong with him, he s sick. And she said, Carver will not leave him. And so I m like, oh my gosh. She said, I can t get him to come out. He s just like right there and he s like putting his paw at Skippy. And you know, Polly said, you always leave when these things are going on. Well yeah, and I m leaving now, goodbye baby. David: Of course. Andy: So she s keeping me informed on the phone. She says, I am going up under there and she said, Skippy's definitely sick so I m gonna take him to the vet. I ve got to get something to put him in. And so when she went, now Carver had been under there, underneath this little house thing, the garage thing, had been underneath there for more than three hours, ok. And staying with that cat who is sick. Which Carver plays with those cats all the time and so Polly goes and when she comes back, Carver has picked this cat up and taken him halfway to the entrance. It s like, dragged him over because it s like real tight under there. And so Polly gets Skippy and puts him in a little crate thing. And she and Adam are headed to the vet, but Carver comes in, well Carver, I thought he was never gonna stop drinking water. I mean, he d been under there for hours. And so, but Skippy, they had to put him to sleep. It was awful. And so we ve got, Skippy is buried in our back yard where Lucy, the Dalmatian, who is Carver s predecessor, is there. And I couldn t help but ask, because when Lucy died, Adam s 12, when Lucy died, 3
Adam was 6. And so, when Adam would say the blessing at night, before dinner, he would say, and God please make Lucy come back alive. And then he would ask us things like, can we go dig Lucy up? No, no, we can t do that. And so I asked Polly, because I was gone for a couple of days, I said, Adam hasn t asked to dig Skippy out has he? She said, no. Is he praying for Skippy to come back alive? And you know, it was awful. But Carver, what a dog. David: Absolutely. And that s a testament to how amazing animals, pets, friends are in those situations. Is that something that you, is that a teachable moment at all, talking about death for your sons or is that just a sad, be there to comfort them or? Andy: No, it s definitely a moment that we are able to talk about that. Because we ve got friends who are sick, we ve got, you know, we live in the world we live in. And we have people that we know that die. And you know, we are Christians, and we believe that we will see these people again, you know. And so, while I m, I guess less sure about the cats, it s still a moment with a little kid that we can certainly teach. And Adam especially, Austin less so. Adam is very, very sensitive to stuff like that. He can really tear up at things like that. And so, but I was able to say at this point, I said, buddy, you know, grandma is in heaven, and you know, grandma s cat Jake, remember Jake? Because grandma passed away several years ago, and it was a really tough time on all of us, obviously. And I said, but you remember grandma s cat Jake? He said, yes sir. I said, you know, Jake is still living. Jake is still up there, he s living with another family now. And I said, can you imagine that grandma, what did she think when she saw Skippy Jon coming? Well hey, she can take care of Skippy Jon for Adam until Adam gets up here. Because see buddy, there s this huge amount of time, this huge amount of time from the time and time again to the time you know, the other end of eternity, ok. And our time on this Earth is very small. And so the time that we actually have to 4
live without grandma, without Skippy, is a very small amount of time. And so, we talk like that because it is what we believe. But also I just gotta throw this little part in there. I really don t know how you deal with kids if you don t believe that? And please, it s nothing that I am interested in learning, so if you re an atheist and listening to this, I m sure you have your way of dealing with that and that s fine ok, but I personally, it has crossed my mind, I don t know what you say. Yeah, you know, grandma s dead. She was great, she was so great, she really accomplished a lot. David: And now she s gone. Andy: Now she s gone. And you re never gonna see her again. David: There s no happy ending there. Andy: There s not any. So I almost want to say, you know, we re getting way off into deep weeds here, I really believe that it is true, ok. But even if I didn t believe it was true, and I had to choose one way of dealing with the kid or the other way, I mean, holy cow, what would you choose? David: Absolutely. Andy: Right. So it s good to me that not only is it something that I believe, but it s the best way to create peace and something in your child. David: Yeah, absolutely. And it provides hope and you talk about hope so frequently. And I think that, that is definitely the right way to handle it. You also always say, you can only be as happy as your unhappiest child. So I know that for 5
those few days or even weeks possibly, that you and Polly are right there with Adam as he s very sad about that. Andy: There have been several nights going to bed, Adam says, dad, I m sad about Skippy. Really? You know, and so we ve stopped and talked, you know. And so, but it s getting time to maybe get another, I can t believe I m saying this, time to get another cat. You know, I have never been really a huge cat person, but these are working cats, you know. David: Right. They re providing a service for you. Andy: Right, these cats are, you know, this is not your normal, lazy cat who flips you the bird and ignores you. This is a working cat. David: Exactly. And you ve got a dog that gets along great with cats. Andy: That s exactly right. David: Carver loves them. Andy: Do we have a question or we re just talking about dead cats? David: Apparently we re just talking about dead cats. We do have a quick question that will get your thoughts on, real quick. This was an email that came in from Faith. She said, dear Andy, just finished listening you speak about the difference between mentoring and coaching. And as a side note, that was on a previous podcast that just aired, I wanna say, within the last month. So if you haven t heard that, go back and listen to it. She says, Faith said that she liked that episode about the difference between mentoring and coaching but now she has 6
one more thing that she would like to hear you talk about. As a child care advocate, prior to being a business owner, a did a research project, where I simply asked moms who came to a battered women's shelter, what is the difference between discipline and punishment? Very few of them knew an answer. It would be interesting to hear you Andy address this. Faith, thank you so much for that question. Andy, that struck me as a very interesting question. I don t think I ve ever heard anybody pose that before. Andy: And I ll tell you why it is an interesting question. I ll tell you why it is an interesting question, she tell us that right there, because she said, a very few people had an answer. And the reason very few people have an answer is because very few people have thought it through, right. If you want to be an effective anything, your thinking is the foundation of it, right. We ve talked about that before. It s not choices that create your family culture. It s not. That s a part of the process. That s not what creates your family culture, it s your thinking. Because your thinking, and how you think and what you think, how much you think, what you think about, what you decide you won t be thinking about so it won t distract you from thinking about. I mean, that is where your choices are formed, right. And so, it s the thinking part rather than just reacting. You know, I found that the higher, because if you look at that scale, the very bottom of it is thinking. And the thinking, what does that do? The thinking creates those choices. The choices and decisions, what do they choose? They choose an action, alright. And so even doing nothing is an action, right. We all know people whose thinking allowed them to choose the action of, I m gonna sit here and do nothing. I ll show them, right. Well actions create results they yield results. And results are what people kind of look at and over time these results pile up and these results become our culture. Our families culture, our company's culture, but the foundation of it is thinking. But what I was going to say is, I find that the higher up somebody engages on that 7
scale, the worse they do in life, ok. And I m saying that there are a lot of successful people that really, that choices and decisions are their foundation. Because they just don t understand that there is something below it that can really affect it and take, and you have been very successful just making choices and decisions as your foundation. But you ve done that with like 75% or 80% rate, of making good choices and decisions. But if you ever hope to approach a 100%, you gotta understand, it s the thinking that controls the choices and decisions. And by themselves, you can t really affect your choices. I mean, telling a kid, make good choices, make good choices, it s like telling a kid to go in the back yard and flip heads with a quarter, flip heads. You know, if you don t understand the process that makes that happen, how can you make it happen at a much greater than 50% rate. And so, but there are people who have, you know, created a great things and have great lives and been very productive and they are engaging at that choice level. Now if you move higher up that scale and you see people who are only engaging at that action level, these are people that we re having a lot of problem within society. Society has to deal with because they re not even thinking it through enough to determine good choices. They re just acting, they re just, like whatever they feel, they re doing it. And this is why when you look at Faith s question, that, you know, you ask moms who come to a battered women shelter, and you re asking them what s the difference between discipline and punishment, and they don t know, they don t have an answer. And a part of the reason they don t have any answer is, they haven t sat down and thought about it, and they haven t decided. Because if you have a particular, if you really love your child, you really love your grandchild, you really love somebody else's child, or you care about society as a whole, because I m gonna tell you, whether you ve got kids or not, whether you've raised your kids, whether you never had any kids, one of the top 8
three most important issues in your life is still parenting. Because it has such a bearing on everything you do, every time you walk out of the house. You can say, well I m not really involved in that. Well you better be. I mean, you better be because it has to do with how you lead at work, whether you re the boss or the employee, you re still leading. I mean, if you re a salesperson, you re leading. I mean, as we engage with people, we re leading. Well whether you have kids or not, number one, you re dealing with people out there who have kids and parenting really affects your life, ok, their parenting. But to also know how to deal with it, to deal with other people, it s kind of all parenting. And so to sit down and think through these things. Alright, so let me answer the question. Boy that was a lot of talking without answering a question, wasn t it? And Faith is probably rolling her eyes and taking the nap. So Faith wake up, Faith, Faith. Alright, to answer your question. Punishment is a necessary part of discipline to get to an end result that you want and that is, that this person does not ever have to be punished by you again or even disciplined by you again, because now they fully understand and embrace the concept of self-discipline. Now let me expand on that just a little bit. Most people when they re talking about their kids or raising kids or whatever, there s very little discipline for most people at age three, ok. There seems to be a prevailing opinion that this is just a little human being and this child deserves my respect and this child should be treated as a human being. And so I m going to explain things, right. Now, while it is true, this child deserves your respect, I have read so much about what these principal issues are and thought through so much of this. And one of the things that I find is that, king Solomon was right. When he wrote, you discipline a child while he s young or you will ruin his life. Now he didn t say, discipline a child while he is young or his life will be ruined. He didn t say, discipline a child while he is young or one day he will ruin his life. He said, 9
discipline a child while he is young or you will ruin his life. And most people take a three year old and their prevailing attitude toward this three years old, certainly with themselves and regards to other people, he s just a child. Just a child. And so when he s yelling and running up down the aisles on airplane or creating a disturbance in a restaurant, you know, they say, hey give me your keys and they shake the keys in front of a kid, shh, come on now. Or they ask the restaurant, can we have some crackers over here. In fact bring me a case of crackers. And then if it gets beyond that, they ll say to people, he s just a child. And they ll say that to themselves, just a child, what do you expect, just a child. Ok, what is happening there is you re actively involved in ruining this child's life. If you really respect this child, you want to make sure that this child knows to obey now, right. That you are going to, you are going to create an atmosphere of discipline, right. That you will, you will create an atmosphere of discipline that if they are outside your circle of discipline, there will be a price to pay. And that is called punishment, alright. Now here s what happens. When you take that three year old and that four year old and you make absolutely sure that that child, that we re not chasing him all over the room counting. That when you stay stop, that means stop right then and that means the first time I tell you to stop, right. David: Yes. Andy: That, now, are we doing this because we re bully, are we doing this because we can? No, we re doing this for specific reason. And the reason is, because if we do not do this, we will be the ones who will ruin this child's life. Here s what happens. When you make sure that child knows to mind, and knows to obey immediately, that there will come a time that you can say to a two or three year old, Johnny stop, and he stops, right then. Now we don t really think about this a lot but I ll tell you what s going on inside this kid s head. Subconsciously this child is aware, yes I stopped but they re still aware but I stopped, but I still wanna go 10
over and get that ball. I want to, right now, but I stopped. Alright, because she s going to punish me if I didn t stop. So subconsciously this kid is starting to connect, while I can make myself do something that I don t wanna do, to get a result that I would like to have. Alright, I want to go get that ball, but I can make myself stop, I can make myself not go get that ball because the result I want to have is I don t want to be punished. Ok, what that is, that is a very bare beginnings of thought process that leads to self-discipline. So that when that child becomes an adult, this child is fully versed in the ability to make themselves do something they don t necessarily want to do, to get a result they would like to have. The biggest successes in our society are the people who have very effective systems of self-discipline within themselves. They have the ability to make themselves do something they do not want to do, to get a result they would like to have. You know David as much as anybody that I don t really like to write, ok. But to me, writing is a discipline. I can make myself do this to get a result that I want to have, I want to help people. And I wanna help a lot of people. And the only way to help a lot of people is to write it down, because I can t talk physically to that many people, ok. So that s a discipline. Now, some of the biggest successes you ll see in our society are people who had a self-discipline. Conversely, the biggest disasters are society sees individually, are people who do not have the ability to make himself do something that they don t necessarily wanna do to get a result they d like to have. You see these people all the time. These people jump of their cars in intersections and get into fights. Because even though they know, they know this is not what I should do, this will not end well, they do not have the ability to make themselves stop. David: Right. And earlier that you start that with a child, the more successful they ll be at that discipline. 11
Andy: Right. So I guess, discipline and punishment are very different, because discipline is what you re creating in child and a punishment is a part of that. Punishment should not be, punishment should definitely be done with them in mind. Not your ego, you know, not your... David: Exactly. It s not for the purpose of you dominating them, it s truly for their betterment. Not just for today and not just Andy: Because if you don t, you will ruin their life. David: Absolutely. And somebody else will have to down the road, society will have to do that. That s great. Andy: That s right. Because adults, adults who, kids who grow into adults without the ability to discipline themselves, society has to discipline them now. And when society, the other adults have to discipline an adult, it s never pretty. Because it s always something like, you re fired, you re under arrest, here s a restraining order. Right? David: Absolutely. So that s why it s so crucial for people to understand that when the child is young, that s the time to do it. Andy: I love doing this podcast David, because we would never, I mean, I hope you guys listen to this or not, totally bored out of your minds, but there s not many times in our lives together that we can think through, that we have the time to think through something as seemingly small as the difference in discipline and punishment. But something as fundamentally huge that has such a dramatic effect on our society and will have a dramatic effect on your family. If you 12
understand it and if you don t understand it, it s going to affect your life in a huge way. David: Definitely. And I think this is the type of content that is easily shareable, this is a great conversation starter. If you ve got someone in your life or at your office that you think will benefit from this podcast, or from these messages, we d love for you to share this with them. Andy: Please, please bring them along and get their email address on the site so that they ll get these every week. David: Absolutely. That s another great reminder, go to andyandrews.com/newsletter, make sure you re signed up for all of our emails. There is a massive promotion and sale coming up on Cyber Monday. We re very excited about it. It ll actually be the biggest sale of the year. Some amazing offer. So make sure that you re on our email list and pass this along to other people. Share the word and we ll be excited Andy to talk to you again next week. Andy: I will be excited to talk to you David and hear what the heck I might have to say. David: Alright. Well until then. 13
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